Joe Biden's Priorities
"After 9-11, the President had a historic opportunity to unite Americans and the world in common cause. Instead, by exploiting the politics of fear, instigating an optional war in Iraq before finishing a necessary war in Afghanistan and instituting policies on torture, detainees and domestic surveillance that fly in the face of our values and interests, President Bush divided Americans from each other and from the world."
“The science is clear, and the physical consequences of global warming are obvious in shrinking polar ice caps, retreating glaciers, stronger storms, and changing rainfall patterns. We can expect rising sea levels, spreading diseases, and unpredictable, abrupt climate shifts. Even the richest nations will face huge costs coping with this challenge. The poorest nations will be hit the worst and will have the fewest resources with which to respond. This is a recipe for global resource wars, and even great resentment of our wealth by those less fortunate – a new world disorder. We must act.”
“Fighting crime is like cutting grass. In the summer I cut my grass on a Saturday and it looks great. I let it go for a week, it looks a little shaggy. Let it go for two weeks, I notice it. Let it go for a month, I have the weeds back.”
For more than three years, Senator Biden has led the effort in Congress to end the genocide in Darfur. In hearings, speeches, opinion pieces, letters to the President, and meetings with major advocacy groups and administration officials, Biden has consistently called for action to stop the genocide and made specific policy recommendations.
“My mother has an expression, children tend to become that which you expect of them. I want a country where we expect much from America’s children. Every child must graduate from high school. Every child should go on to higher education. Today, just two-thirds of students entering high school graduate, and about two-thirds of those go on to college. We are losing too many children in this country, wasting too much talent, leaving so much potential untapped. We know what we need to do: First, stop focusing just on test scores. Second, start education earlier. Third, pay educators more. Fourth, reduce class size. Fifth, make higher education affordable.”
"The only way we can achieve energy and climate security in this country is to reduce our dependence on oil. We should take back tax breaks for big oil companies and invest in green energy technology. We should have a windfall profits tax to fund everything from mass transit to high-speed rail to the next generation of safe, efficient cars. Finally, we should restrict speculation and price-gouging, and stand up to OPEC's monopoly. We need solutions of the future, not drilling ourselves deeper into dependence on oil."
"We should not have to worry that a grandfather taking his grandchild to a favorite fishing hole is exposing her to dioxin contamination; or that when students turn on a faucet at school, they swallow arsenic; or that acid rain is showering us – especially when corporate responsibility could prevent it."
“The image I have of September 11th is of that fireman, coming out of the debris of the World Trade Towers with that determined look on his face. President Bush stood there with his bull horn, promising fire fighters on behalf of the Nation we would give them what they needed to face new dangers. The President hasn’t, but where I come from, a promise made is a promise kept.”
“My dad had an expression, ‘show me your budget, and I’ll show you what you value.’ We need to end the War in Iraq that costs more than $100 billion a year, and end $85 billion a year in tax breaks for the wealthiest among us, and start valuing the middle class who built this country.”
“This Administration has dug us into a very deep hole internationally. We need to end the war in Iraq and to restore our place in the world.”
Joe Biden’s highest priorities – along with ending the war in Iraq – are universal health care and education. He will work bring together key health care stakeholders from labor, business, health care and government to seize the historic opportunity created by the recognition from organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies, the Business Roundtable and the AMA to the labor movement that the time has come for universal, affordable health care.
“Politicians need to understand what it’s like for people on Medicare, who are lying in bed staring at a ceiling wondering if they are going to be able to pay the bills. We need to understand their concerns and aspirations if we are going to reshape Medicare in the 21st Century.”
“Every day we see more evidence this economy is not working for middle-class Americans. If we honor work, we have to reward it.”
Preparing for retirement has never been more complicated. Fewer families can count on secure retirement income from defined benefit pension plans. Those that do have pensions worry about whether they will still be there when they retire. At the same time most families are hard pressed to find money to put aside in savings. More than half of American workers believe they will have to push back retirement. Security – independence and a decent standard of living − is rapidly becoming a thing few feel confident they will have when they retire. The American promise that no one who works hard their whole life should end up with nothing is in jeopardy.
“A grateful nation needs to always, always, always honor and celebrate our veterans. And we must fulfill our solemn obligation to as Lincoln said, ‘care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.’”
"What I'm most proud of in my entire career is the Violence Against Women Act. It showed we can change people's lives, but the change is always one person at a time. There are many more laws and attitudes that need changing so women are treated with equal opportunities at work, in the classroom, and in our health care system."
